


Wrath

by Bauliya



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Azula's Redemption Arc, Firebending, Gen, Healthy Sibling Relationships, Recovery, Suicidal ideation (minor), Trauma, institutionalisation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:07:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25896439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bauliya/pseuds/Bauliya
Summary: The secret to firebending is that fire was only as strong as its source. Azula drew her flames from her wrath, and for years they burned the hottest blue.Until they didn't.
Relationships: Azula & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 166





	Wrath

All firebenders are taught that fire is the most powerful element. Only the true masters realise that that is not true. A rock is a rock, regardless of the skill of the bender. A gust of wind is a gust of wind. An ocean, a pond, a puddle; all exist independently of the wielder.

But fire comes from within.

It has the _possibility_ of being the most powerful element, depending on its source. Depending from where it’s drawn.

Azula drew her flames from her wrath. And for years, they burned the hottest blue. 

—

It wasn’t hard, in the end, to break out of the facility where Zuko had exiled her. Her father was dead. He’d refused to eat, she’d heard. Or perhaps starved to death, by the new Firelord. She didn’t put it above Zuzu, now that he’d grown a spine. It was only nature, to eliminate your enemies. 

On the day of the funeral, the asylum was run by a skeleton staff. She didn’t even need to kill anyone. Just kick out the bars on her window, weakened from weeks of her sawing away at the metal by the shackles of her chi-blocking cuffs (there was poetry there, but Azula never had the time for metaphors), and leap fifty feet into the ocean below, hoping the waves don’t crack her against the rocks.

They didn’t. Swimming was.. difficult. She only had one set of functioning limbs, the best she could do with her chained wrists was keep them out of the way. The sea, gratefully, wasn't choppy. Azula had done many things that seemed impossible right until she did it, and it was like this: do not look back and see how little progress you've made, and do not look ahead and see how far you have to go. Focus only on your next steps, suck it up, and keep going. That was how she finally crashed onto a tiny, nameless beach and collapsed onto a heap for the next ten hours, muscles aching. 

Breaking the cuffs required another six hours, and rocks, sticks, stones, a couple lacerations, then finally two huge rocks and a lever, but.

Her bending…

Her bending did not return.

_Exhaustion_ , Azula reasoned. _Trauma. Captivity. I’ll give myself a day. Two._

Three weeks passed. The best she could do was pathetic puff of pale orange. She'd stopped hunting after the second week, and now she'd run out of berries. Or maybe just eaten the ones in her tiny patch of jungle. But she was too tired to forage. Too tired for anything. Azula lay on the shore and stared longingly at the cliff, refusing to refill her her water skin, letting her skin burn and lips chap. A few crabs nipped at her tattered clothes, and then dawdled off. She smiled sharply. Without her bending, she wasn’t even enough for crab feed.

Azula closed her eyes.

And then.

Something wonderfully cool dribbled over her face, and she lapped at it, and looked. A blurry face stared down, with dark hair and pale skin, except in the top corner. 

“…Zuzu?” she rasped, “Zuzu.” Fuck. What the fuck was he doing her? She immediately lunged for his throat, but he grabbed her wrist with an infuriating ease and pinned it. Azula cried out, in frustration and humiliation rather than any physical pain.

“You can try to kill me,” he grabbed her other wrist too, “after you stop being dehydrated.”

She decided she was too tired to kill him, after changing into decent clothes and drinking two bottles of water and letting ice melt on her tongue as he carefully rubbed aloe into her sunburns. Sunburns. Ha. So weak. So pathetic.

“You’re not pathetic.”

“I can’t bend,” she said, cackling wetly, “what use am I, if I can’t bend? Just throw me off that cliff, Zuzu. I want to fly.” Azula would've done it too, only it requires climbing, and the _exhaustion_ that had taken over her mind, that didn't go away no matter how she slept, just refused to let her. Azula raised her hand and dropped it, flailing her fingers as it fell, “ _Splat_.”

Zuko did not reply.

“I’m like you now," She said, "The stupid royal non-bender.” That always drew a reaction. A reminder that not even the tiniest candle flame bended to his will until he was ten. 

“I’m a bender, Azula.”

“You’re _not!_ ” She screamed, twisting, “You—you weren’t supposed to be! Little, little stupid u-useless Zuzu, taking _my fucking crown_ —” Azula broke off into a loud cry, and began to sob, ugly. Liar, liar, liar. They were all liars. All a conspiracy, to take what was hers, her crown, _her_ life, her destiny, her father, her mother—

Zuko didn’t say anything, not for a while.

Then he touched her shoulder.

“Maybe I can help you.”

—

Zuko had come alone, on a dingy boat powered by firebending. Though he chose to row. No doubt for her sake. Azula scoffed and sat in the corner. It was just like Zuko, to put feelings over efficiency. Pathetic. They stopped two days later on the shores of a familiar Island. 

“Seriously? These ruins? What is this, school? Are you taking me on field trip, Zuzu? Will we go to the museum next? The zoo?” A spear shot out, and she ducked just in time. “Oh.”

“Welcome,” he said, “to the sun temple.”

—

He was arguing. With semi-naked priests. Azula crouched in the shade and looked away, drawing circles on the ground. She’d learned the stupid dance, but apparently that wasn’t the end of her humiliation, now she would be judged by these _imbeciles_ —

“Azula,” he said, “c’mon. We’re ready for you.”

The dragons slithered out of their caves and for a second, it was like she could breathe again. She locked eyes with Zuko. And they started the dance. And it didn’t feel stupid, and it didn’t feel forced. It flowed through her limbs, a thing she’d known her entire life, and forgotten, or erased, and—

Their knuckles met. The world turned white.

Azula…

A z u l a ….

“Where am I?” A forest. But also not a forest. A cave, of lava, with a sky. And.. warmth. Indescribable warmth. Her eyes prickled with tears, but her soul felt.. settled. The constant thrum of thoughts shooting in a thousand directions and worries and orders and plans that weighed down at the base of the skull was gone.

“Who are you?”

“My child,” the woman who did not look like a woman said, “you know who I am.”

“I don’t.”

“Azula, you know who I am,” she loomed over her now, and touched her chest, “I am you. You are me. You feel me, with every breath.”

“You're not mine.”

“I have always been yours”

“You have not! You've been—been his! You GAVE him BENDING when he wasn't SUPPOSED to have it! And—and," She panted, and wiped her face, "And you stole mine." 

“That was never your bending,” she took her hand, extended it, unclasped her fist, “that was your father’s bending. Angry.” Pulled apart another finger, “destructive,” another, “painful.”

Agni stretched her palm and placed it over her own chest. A comforting light filled her, that she’d never let herself feel before

“You were always my favourite, Azula. I will never fail you again.”

"I'm nobody's favourite. It's always _him_." 

Agni tilted her chin up with her finger, "then why would I give you _this_?" 

—

She came to in Zuko’s arms.

“Woah, there. You okay?”

“How—how long was I out?”

He shrugged. “A couple seconds.” The dragons had retreated back into their caves, though she could make out their bright eyes in the shadows.

Azula pulled away. They were still on the platform. She crouched, low, her mind still free of the weight of unrelenting thoughts, thought about that warmth, about Agni, _bent_. 

The inferno that shot out of her fist was a splendid rainbow.

Zuko was delighted, though he tried not to show. “Still want me dead?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Haven’t made up my mind.”

—

Azula, for years, drew flames from her wrath.

But now it was time to let go.

**Author's Note:**

> MY BABY DESERVES A FUCKING REDEMPTION ARC!!!!! LITERALLY FUCK YOU BRYKE FOR GIVING HER BROTHER A STRONG SUPPORT SYSTEM AND A CHANCE AT REDEMPTION AND JUST LABELLING AZULA A CRAZY BITCH AND TOSSING HER INTO A MENTAL INSTITUTION. I HATE IT HERE. 
> 
> anyway. comments are love. based on a prompt by @agentcalliope. you can talk to me on tumblr @bauliya (i'm a consistent bitch 😎)


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